CAPITOL IDEAS: Freedom of Immigration Acts: A Special Report
Bethell, Tom
CAPITOL IDEAS Freedom of Immigration Acts: A Special Report by Tom Bethell A FTER THE IMMIGRATION BILL FAILED in the U.S. Senate, the postmortems deplored the new power of bloggers and the...
...For years he has resisted the Ehrlichian gloom about exploding populations, and has drawn much needed attention to population decline...
...The liberals said: “We do need it because all these undocumented workers are living in the shadows...
...but for a reason that is not at all reassuring...
...Some on the left opposed it...
...He thought it at least as likely that we will end up Americanizing Mexico...
...In June, all we heard about was amnesty...
...SEPTEMBER 2007 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 39...
...I’m glad we heard his story...
...He pointed out something that is obvious when you think about it, but almost never mentioned...
...So they shuffled their feet and allowed for some increased border security (without really meaning to see it through, if the bill ever became law...
...The progressive minded would like to transform hardworking newcomers into union-organized, taxpaying, welfare-receiving, fully enrolled, voting Democrats, ready to file a grievance or a complaint at the drop of a hat...
...the reallocation of green cards in favor of skills rather than family ties...
...labor with less than a high-school education...
...Did the defeated bill deserve to lose...
...The Washington Post told the story of a shadowdweller called Ernesto, a 31-year-old handyman from El Salvador, whose last name was not given...
...Possibly there would be a real economic contraction...
...He sounded half out of the shadows to me, almost a lobbyist, in fact...
...S OMETIMES I THINK the real dividing line in this debate is between those who think that the strong performance of the U.S...
...A LL OF WHICH RAISES THIS QUESTION: What exactly is wrong with current law...
...Do we need increased border security...
...The bill would also have made some eminently desirable changes, such as reducing the family-reunification provision that has led to a chain migration from south of the border and increasing the quotas for skilled workers...
...will not continue indefinitely...
...The impulse to crack down is “understandable,” says the Washington Post, because towns and counties “bear the burden of providing immigrants with health care, education, law enforcement and other services...
...But it failed in the Senate...
...One of those who got it right, in my view, was the columnist Bruce Bartlett—always sound on economic matters...
...Nonetheless, Wattenberg ’s claim (in Fewer) that Europe is losing about 700,000 people a year now looks exaggerated...
...Furthermore, after I had been here for a few years—in my case it took about four, as I recall— I began to suspect that I had a better appreciation of this country’s merits than many of those who were born here...
...This in turn increases the pressure for amnesty...
...Nothing wrong with that, but it’s always hazardous to allow ideas about party affiliation to influence national policy...
...He mentioned the growing numbers of Americans moving south (it is TOM BETHELL possible for foreigners to own property in Mexico, according to Steve Forbes...
...could enjoy the benefits of free immigration, with essentially open borders, because there was no welfare state...
...His book has many good things in it, and it belongs on the shelf of anyone interested not just in the immigration debate but in the American future...
...But one thing I do admire is the intensity that he brings to the issue...
...maybe for no more than another decade...
...There was a parallel problem on the other side...
...Who decided that they have that responsibility...
...Are illegals all that bad...
...But that won’t happen if their potential customers are hiding in the shadows and on their best behavior to avoid attracting attention...
...They are more worried about being deported than exploited, so they have no leverage.… It is precisely their illegal status that makes these immigrants valuable and willing to work cheaply...
...I suspect that most undocumented workers couldn’t care less about voting anyway...
...Mary Anastasia O’Grady of the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page, who says that taxes in Mexico are too high, among other major problems, seems to have an exclusive on the subject...
...Ultimately, my impression is that he is too preoccupied with the issue of America’s ethnic and racial make-up...
...The problem is the welfare entitlement, not foreigners willing and able to work...
...Anyway, the flood of job-seeking Mexicans into the U.S...
...The good news, as I see, it, is that “Ernesto does not intend to leave...
...He talks to his wife by cell phone most days and hopes to bring her here...
...As a painter, carin places like Vermont and Massachusetts...
...Ernesto “watched ruefully as the senators dealt their lethal blow to his prospects for a normal life on the right side of the law,” said the Post...
...Senator Kyl of Arizona, one of its principal backers, is a strong conservative...
...That suspicion has grown with every passing year...
...He is the author of a book called Impostor (2006), arguing that President Bush “bankrupted America and betrayed the Reagan legacy...
...In the shadows...
...have an effect comparable to that of a Wattenberg, an AEI fellow, is the author major tax increase...
...Now, however, overgenerous government benefits render free immigration untenable...
...One of the main advocates of the idea that the economic contribution of immigrants is not that important is Peter Brimelow, the author of Alien Nation (1995) and like me an immigrant from Britain—a Britain that is no longer Great...
...Tom Bethellis a senior editor of The American Spectator and author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Science (Regnery Publishing...
...But they also knew that they couldn’t openly support lawbreaking...
...But do we really need to do anything about those who are already here and working...
...All these things should be tightened up...
...We have already sharply increased the “cost” of crossing the border, he said, and one consequence is that those who are already in the United States are less likely to return home, because they are not sure that they will be able to get back in...
...To what extent are immigrants good for America...
...Those were the two positions...
...The Washington Post headlined a David Broder column on the subject, “A Mob-Rule Moment...
...There is no “right” to vote...
...Why did we need this whole new immigration arrangement to begin with...
...They favor amnesty and legalization because for them the unpoliticized life is a life hardly worth living...
...shadows...
...President Bush and his family have long enjoyed amicable relations with Hispanics, and he has seen it as one of the missions of his presidency to let them know that the GOP welcomes them...
...The last major change in the law, in 1986, which also had an amnesty provision, did not turn out as expected...
...Just enforce the borders...
...I’m not sure that we do...
...A done deal cooked up behind closed doors was derailed by the voice of the people...
...Workers do Americans live in Mexico today...
...increased enforcement at the border and in the workplace—but that was one of its problems...
...He well illustrates my point that immigrants often care passionately about the future of America...
...may now be about the same...
...He has since retired...
...He actually showed up on Capitol Hill “with a small group of immigrants” as the bill was being debated in the Senate...
...economy require a sizable inflow of newcomers...
...into Mexico North...
...According to Gordon H. Hanson of UC San Diego, the U.S...
...It’s better than what he left behind,” the Post allowed, with enough “to nourish an immigrant’s dream of earning a little more, of working full time...
...Possibly there would of many books, including The Birth Dearth be a real economic contraction...
...Candor was lacking, because the liberals had not the slightest interest in enforcing the borders...
...I also have my doubts about the national-security rationale for higher fences...
...Fertility rates in Mexico and the U.S...
...But let’s also discourage government handouts, and keep them out of the embrace of union organizers...
...That’s when they hit on their successful war cry, “No amnesty...
...But first let me disclose my own bias...
...nor did the one before that—the big immigration reform act of 1965...
...Perhaps as many as a million unable to create jobs for its own people...
...Furthermore, the present rule that foreigners become citizens if they are born here is absurdly lax...
...It could even cause power plants in the state to be shut down for hiring illegals...
...Does the continued performance of the U.S...
...When the liberals uttered their mantra—“workers are forced to live in the shadows”—the conservatives mostly didn’t know how to respond...
...My sense is that ending the contribution of the illegals to the U.S...
...Trent Lott...
...By the way, I wish some even beachfront property, but they need to follow cer-news organization would explain why Mexico is tain procedures...
...Meanwhile, Wattenberg pointed out, the fertility rate in My sense is that ending the contribution of Mexico has plunged to replacement levels— the illegals to the U.S...
...They could almost be reduced to six words: “Enforce the borders...
...For god’s sake, that’s the way people used to be in this country, before the 1960s, when the welfare rot and the entitlement mentality began to spread...
...And so on...
...How abnormal is his life...
...With the help of a “local non-profit,” he finds don’t mind it, or they wouldn’t have come here in the first place...
...Liberals are horrified by such a worldview...
...We only have to think of the European situation today to realize how relatively minor (or non-existent) is our supposed Latino immigration problem here...
...Bartlett pointed out that the undocumented often work for less than the minimum wage, often for cash...
...And I consider America to be a great country...
...The measure was (partly) supported by the (conservative) Wall Street Journal editorial page...
...All I can say is that it would be nice if whites were reproducing themselves...
...Without (1995) and Fewer (2004), the latter subtitled “How the New Demography of Depopulation an expanding, dynamic economy, America Will Shape Our Future...
...Good for him...
...I hope he finds lots more work and that he doesn’t get harassed by the government or by anti-immigrant vigilantes...
...What’s so bad about being in the shadows...
...38 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR SEPTEMBER 2007 The opinion in Texas, for example, is that if the GOP can capture 40 percent of the Latino vote, the state will remain under Republican control for a long time to come...
...The main problem with this year’s immigration debate was an overall lack of candor...
...Far from having removed a source of tension, we would find that interest-group rivalries had become far more intense...
...These immigrants have more children, too, which is why the apparent revival of fertility rates in countries like France and Britain is equally disquieting...
...And if Mexico moves in a more capitalist direction, as is all-too-slowly happening, then the demand for labor south of the border could soar...
...CAPITOL IDEAS Freedom of Immigration Acts: A Special Report by Tom Bethell A FTER THE IMMIGRATION BILL FAILED in the U.S...
...I realize that that is misleading...
...economy would have an effect comparable to that of a major tax increase...
...Senate, the postmortems deplored the new power of bloggers and the Internet...
...By 2007, with the President essentially on their side on the issue, Democrats now controlling the Senate believed that they could cobble together a “comprehensive” package that would have legalized the illegals, and over the long haul put them on an (obstacle-strewn) path to citizenship...
...One problem now is that heedless crackdowns on undocumented workers are sure to increase...
...So border enforcement may well be increasing at a time when the need for it is declining...
...How about someone from the Journal’s famously “independent” newsroom taking a look at so newsworthy a topic...
...Often called the “dean” of Washington journalists, Broder was concerned that public opinion had been “exaggerated by modern communications and interest group pressure...
...At the same time, almost 30 percent of the Mexican workforce is now in the United States, would soon be in a great mess...
...but that’s okay...
...In a passage that Herbert Spencer would have admired— Spencer was the first to use the phrase “the survival of the fittest” and was a great admirer of markets free of government intervention—Bartlett continued: SEPTEMBER 2007 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 37 CAPITOL IDEAS Illegal aliens are not very likely to complain to the Labor Department or a union if they have some grievance...
...Talk radio is running America,” complained Mississippi’s Sen...
...I could penter, landscaper, and electrician, he does better here write a whole article saying why they are the problem, not the Mexicans doing stoop labor “What’s so bad about being in the under a hot sun...
...Let’s also make sure that they don’t vote...
...And no one at all, inside the Beltway or beyond it, knew how all 36 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR SEPTEMBER 2007 those provisions would have worked out in practice...
...The conservative argument was: “We don’t need this new law...
...To me, the real threat to this country TOM BETHELL comes not from immigrants who are ready and will-work several days a week and “sends $200 a month ing to work but from home-grown trustfund socialists home to his family in El Salvador...
...That is the problem right there...
...But they don’t seem to be, anywhere in the world that I know of...
...In a column in the Washington Times, Bartlett wrote that in the 19th and early 20th centuries the U.S...
...I’ll explain that in a minute...
...than he ever could in El Salvador...
...Presumably the immigrants A S TO THE RECENT DEBATE, let’s posit that there were two sides: liberals (favoring the reform bill) and conservatives (opposed...
...Let them send money back home to Mexico, El Salvador, and the rest...
...In case the argument about people living in the shadows comes up in the future, here’s how to respond...
...And voters—all voters, regardless of race, creed, color, or national origin—should have to pass a civics test before being admitted to the polling stations...
...They obviously don’t consider themselves to be exploited because all these transactions are consensual and they are free to go back at any time...
...Lots of immigrants, many of them from Islamic countries in North Africa and Asia, have been flooding into Europe since he wrote his book...
...R ECENTLY I MET BEN WATTENBERG at a Washington function and asked him what he thought of the claims that I hear from some on the right, that the illegals will end up transforming the U.S...
...And that carried the day...
...The proposed new law addressed a far wider range of issues—guest workers...
...Last year, I heard an interesting argument about this from Arizona Congressman Jim Kolbe, who represented a district on the Mexican border...
...Pay them their wages, give them raises where necessary...
...Without an expanding, dynamic economy, America would soon be in a great mess...
...This time, talk radio and the bloggers focused on the revival of amnesty for the apparently 12 million undocumented workers in the country...
...prefer to work in their own country, after all...
...The trouble arose this year because the liberals saw that they had the President partly on their side...
...In a nutshell, here is how the debate went...
...Where they had once thought of themselves as transients, moving back and forth, they are now more inclined to think of themselves as residents...
...In the end, that more or less was the position of the Wall Street Journal: “Current policy is preferable to some vast new enforcement regime that harasses employers for hiring willing workers,” the paper editorialized...
...That is a fascinating topic, but of more interest right now is the issue of immigration itself...
...Illegals are therefore more likely to stay once they get here...
...Arizona has already passed a new law imposing tough sanctions on employers who hire illegal immigrants...
...There was no effective response to that and so the bill was defeated...
...economy is of major importance, as I do, and those who either don’t think that way, or who don’t understand what an important contribution immigrants make to the economy...
...L ET THOSE WHO WANT TO WORK COME,I say...
...So whenever I hear criticism of immigrants, whether legal or not, I find myself suspecting that a lot of other immigrants may feel as I do: that America is a great country—and long may it prosper...
...I’m an immigrant myself...
...They account for “nearly 30 percent of U.S...
...The numbers are amazing...
...Meanwhile, the border-enforcement lobby was strengthening, and in 2006, with Capitol Hill still under GOP control, the House of Representatives passed a measure that would have greatly increased border security...
...Presumably the immigrants don’t mind it, or they wouldn’t have come here in the first place...
...Bear in mind that they (we) have had an experience that most home-grown Americans never have: we have lived somewhere else...
...Brimelow and I hardly see eye to eye on immigration...
...more so, I dare say, than a good many of the native-born...
...This in turn saves both them and their employers a lot of taxes...
...economy would possibly below it...
...Hardly anyone knew what lurked within the bill’s 500 pages...
...This makes no more sense today than when it was first proposed 20 years ago...
...economy “absorbs around 300,000 new illegal laborers each year,” building houses, harvesting crops, manning assembly lines, gardening, cleaning homes...
Vol. 40 • September 2007 • No. 7
